Yes, however there are important "more-s" to it. In the first instance, it's all about writing the text. In the second instance, it's all about collating/editing/rewriting the text. In the third instance, it's all about seeing or hearing the text. In the fourth instance, it's all about interpreting the text. In the fifth instance, it's all about practicing the text.

For a text with the history of the Koran or Hadith, at no point along the way of those instances can one say with certainty that what occurs within those several instances or phases in the phenomenology of a sacred text is in fact the Will of God.

King Abdullah is a better leader than the "hate anyone who is a Muslim and hate the Saudis more than anyone" types, recognizes.

The leader - a Monarch mind you - who bans all religions except Islam, who arrests anyone praticing any religion except Islam, is hardly someone I would hold up as "better" leader than the hate-Islam crowd thinks.

In fact, the "hate Islam" crowd can point to Abdullah's views as to why they dislike the religon.

Neither the "King" or the hate-Islam crowd are people I particularly care to listen to.

What if the women's fathers, close family or husbands refuse to drive them to the polls, or how will women vote in the presence of "strange" men who man the polling stations (literally)? Seems like this is a "right" that will not be enforceable because of the debilitating nature of Sharia law.

The right to vote, yes that is a good thing. Now he can get back to mowing down legions of peaceful protestors with American-made weapons, and with the implicit backing of the American government. This tosed-out bone ought to be exchange-able for the lives of 10,000 Saudis, don't you think? Isn't that about the going rate?

The most appalling thing about Cedarford's quote is the he repeatedly mocks "fundies" as long as those "fundies" are Christian. King Abdullah presides over a theocratic, fundamentalist state and Cedarford is eager to make excuses for him. Further evidence that the anti-fundamentalist movement in America is little more than class snobbery. Jethrow the mechanic believes in the literal word of God=loser. Most August King Abdullah applies a fundementalist reading of the Koran to the governing of his country=enlightened.

Dances with wolves. The Saudi Kingdom shows how those poor, ignorant tribes that the Europeans conquered and exploited would have fared were their leaders given unlimited wealth instead of conquest and chains. Do you think Kevin Costner will ever make a movie highlighting the way native American tribes mistreated their women?

It would seem he ( C4 ) has a soft spot for the camel jockey that tickled both his tonsils and prostrate back in 91. Or just like the leftists, there are no enemies to the left to the neo-Nazi's there are no enemies among the anti-Semites. Whatever.

Anyhow isn't it mighty white of the King of the Magic Kingdom granting woman the (non) right to vote for nothing of any significance? This dangerous experiment in democracy might lead to such social outrages of woman driving and showing their faces in public. And you know what sexual deviancy that could lead to.

read the post again--the jonah goldberg thesis (ie, nazis were leftists) is pure dreck, like your brain. Now, opposing a moron such as Goldberg doesn't imply one flies a swazi or salutes Der Fuhrer. In fact like most Klanhousers, you're the one with the..Hitler tutu--(right next to yr white sheet with the eyeholes cut out! heh). You just lie about it

I don't see how anyone is being asked to say, "Well, that's good enough, then." And I find the hostility to the new rules ridiculous. People want to be upset or something. It makes them happy. But lets cut off our noses to spite our faces just because it's not revolutionary upheaval.

Is measured progress worse than no progress?

Or maybe it is. Reformers and revolutionaries do tend to want to keep things as bad as possible for fear that if things get better people will stop being mad and the reformer won't get everything they wanted because their angry masses find something better to do.

This seems like a good step to me and it ought to be lauded.

Announce the changes at the beginning of a political cycle rather than in the middle or at the end. Isn't that reasonable? If rules are going to change, shouldn't they change when the game starts?

Let people get used to the idea that women are competent to participate. The King is talking to people who think it's reasonable to believe that women have some impediment to making "correct" decisions about important matters. I'm not offended that he chooses an argument that we Westerners feel is, itself, chauvinistic.

I don't think that he's advocating some sort of control or check or even need to make sure women make those correct judgments. He's simply saying that women have shown that they can and implying Muhammad's support in this.

That he remains in power in the region instead of being overthrown is remarkable, and I think that it's due to taking the strong views towards Islam that he takes. It's not in our best interests, perhaps, but the man and his family haven't been deposed and slaughtered and the country is not being taken over by the religious radicals that we denigrate him for pacifying. And it's not in our interests to have that happen either.

This seems like a favorable development, and although considerable skepticism is still amply justified, Abdullah and the ruling family ought be given some measure of credit for it. Thank you for posting about this, Prof. Althouse.

About places like Saudi Arabia - both men and women (and girls and boys) live under harsh, arbitrary and enormous power (wielded by more powerful men, the judicial system, rural tribal council, etc.). One "compensation" for a man, assuming he's at the head of his family, is that he can choose to wield harsh, arbitrary and enormous power over his own family and have it go largely unchecked.

I will be impressed when they are also able to drive, travel without the permission and escort of a male relative, attend co-educational colleges, hold a job that gives them authority over a man, and flee burning buildings without a head covering.

Until then, piss on all Wahabbis.

On second thought, if all the women in SA were simultaneously issued guns, none of the above would be relevant, and I would gladly fork over for PPV of the proceedings.